Dancing On the Ceiling (1996)

Who is Stanley Donen? Though he collaborated on some of the most popular films of the century, including Singin' in the Rain, and directed Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, and Audrey Hepburn, the bitter fact is that many movie buffs have never heard of the man. And this drives Donen's biographer a little batty. Therefore, a few less-than-balanced accounts sneak into a narrative that otherwise takes the high road: Most glaringly, the late Gene Kelly emerges as a temperamental, callous control freak, getting undeserved credit for one of the two's joint projects (On the Town). But despite this indignant strain, Dancing on the Ceiling remains a well-fleshed-out filmography of both the renowned (Indiscreet, Funny Face) and the justifiably forgotten (Kiss Them for Me). As for the filmmaker's obscurity, one only wishes Stephen M. Silverman had done more to explore Billy Wilder's simple, wise explanation: ''They stopped making his kind of pictures.'' A-